NEW YORK – Olink reported before the opening of the market Thursday that its Q1 revenues rose 70 percent.
For the three months ended March 31, the Uppsala, Sweden-based firm posted revenues of $13.6 million, up from $8.0 million in the year-ago period.
Service revenue was $9.6 million, up 60 percent from $6.0 million in Q1 2020. Kits revenue was $2.8 million, up 87 percent from $1.5 million in the year-ago period. Other revenue was $1.2 million, up 140 percent from $500,000 in Q1 2020.
On a conference call following release of the results, Olink CEO Jon Heimer highlighted in particular the company's Explore platform, which allows users to measure 1,536 proteins using its proximity extension assay with a next-generation-sequencing readout on Illumina's NovaSeq platform. Launched as a service in June 2020 and as a kit-based product in March 2021, Explore saw strong uptake during the quarter, Heimer said, accounting for more than 50 percent of total revenue compared to 26 percent in full-year 2020.
The company is also preparing to launch a new benchtop qPCR platform, called Olink Signature, aimed at more targeted analyses, along with a custom assay offering where customers can choose sets of up to 20 protein markers. He said the company will begin taking orders for the Signature platform in June and expects to see revenues from the system starting in Q4.
Heimer said Olink remains on track to launch a 3,000-plex version of its Explore platform by the end of the year and a 4,500-plex version in 2022. He added that the company is particularly focused on driving sales of the kit version of the Explore platform.
Olink's net loss in the first quarter was $14.3 million, or $.48 per share, compared to $11.1 million, or $.76 per share, in Q1 2020.
The company's R&D expenses were $4.2 million, up 62 percent from $2.6 million in the year-ago period. Its SG&A costs were up almost threefold to $18.1 million from $6.6 million in Q1 2020.
Olink said it expects 2021 revenue of between $90 million and $92 million.
It ended the quarter with $191.4 million in cash and cash equivalents.
The proteomics firm went public in March through a $265 million initial public offering on the Nasdaq Global Market.
In Thursday afternoon trading, Olink shares were up 2 percent to $29.68.